Regency Rout Cakes

Regency Rout Cakes – A recipe for small, rich fruit cakes, which would have graced any Jane Austen Rout party or gathering

Rout Cakes for a Regency Inspired Afternoon Tea

Today’s recipe for Regency Rout Cakes is one I have been meaning to make for a long time, probably after reading Jane Austen novels, although I have seen them mentioned in Dickens novels too.

I have the Tea with Jane Austen book, and there is a recipe for Rout Cakes in there. I have also seen them in Mary-Anne Boermans excellent Great British Bakes: Forgotten Treasures for Modern Bakers book too.

However, it was Paul’s recipe from the Regency Cook’s website that I decided to make, as I had all of the ingredients to hand, including caraway seeds, which I added to the recipe.

These were really delicious little cakes, almost like a rock cake (rock bun), but, with a delectable floral taste due to the rose and orange flower water, as well as a rich brandy flavour too.

I served these sprinkled with icing sugar with a glass of white port, although I think Madeira would be a fabulous and very quaffable tincture to have with them.

So, what is a “Rout”? The Oxford English Dictionary describes a rout as “A fashionable gathering; a large evening party or soirée of a type fashionable in the 18th and early 19th centuries”.

I am certain that in Emma’s world, that would have been the case, but I have also read that routs were often “a disorderly, disorganised, or unruly group of people; a boisterous throng; a crowd”.

Cards, a very popular Regency pastime, were often the centre of routs, and Tobias George Smollett writes in The expedition of Humphry Clinker, (1771) that “She keeps a small rout at her own house, never exceeding ten or a dozen card-tables”, which seems rather large!

In the second volume of Emma, Mrs Elton complains that at the routs she has attended, there was “a poor attempt at rout cakes, there being no ice in the Highbury card-parties”

By ice, I assume the means icing, and I’m certain she would be very disappointed in my rather plain version of Regency Rout Cakes today!

I have discovered that rout cakes came in all shapes and sizes, from plain buns to iced biscuit type cakes, which were elaborately decorated with intricate icing, and nonpareils, (hundreds and thousands)

Whatever the history of these little cakes, or buns as I like to call them, they make a delicious wee cake that is excellent when taken with a cup of tea, or a glass of port.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we did – do let me know by leaving a comment below, and whether it was a cuppa or a glass of the strong stuff that was enjoyed with them. Karen

Original Historical Recipes for Rout Cakes

More Historical Recipes

• Traditional Soul Cakes
• Old Fashioned Currant Buns
• Traditional Banbury Cakes

• Yorkshire Sly Cake (Dried Fruit & Nut Pie)
• Vintage Tea Room English Madeleines
• Princess Elizabeth Cakes

• Mincemeat Buns (Cable Cakes)
• Winston Churchill’s Fruit Loaf
• Five O’ Clock Tea Cakes

Regency Rout Cakes Recipe